


teeth beneath the velvet

by Eddaic



Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drama, F/M, Friendship, Mutsu-centric, Second Person, Self-Esteem Issues, Sexual Content, character flaws galore, growing old(er) together, mature themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:32:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9469532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eddaic/pseuds/Eddaic
Summary: (he must be a slave, because you found him)





	

**Author's Note:**

> A note of warning: This fic is written for personal gratification and not necessarily compliant to canon or your own ideas of how canon should be interpreted. 
> 
> The title is from Angel Nafis' 'Gravity'.

**teeth beneath the velvet  
**

Detested you are.

This isn’t up for debate. You are a slave owner, bringer of ill news and misery, and your hair is chopped as sharp as your tongue. You want for nothing and want nothing. Then a slave (he must be a slave, because you found him) with eyes brighter than the gems in your belt calls you Captain (he says you must be the captain, because the docks are squeaky-clean and the men at attention and your arms crossed like you’ve got something to prove), and you are pleased. You lock him in the cells because it's standard procedure.

He is not handsome but you like looking at him, at the scars on his hands and the strong curve of his back, so you conceal yourself behind a corner and steal glimpses of him as he plays childish games with the other slaves. He laughs and you cringe, because he’s loud and you hate noise. Then the other slaves laugh too, bold and clear like toll bells. You decide the cage – the prison – is unbecoming of him. You don’t want him free, but the harsh grey bars make his skin appear sickly and his brash laughter bounces around the metal walls. It’s just ugly, and you happen to like pretty things.

He catches you one day and you stammer, and curse yourself for it, for the hot flush around your neck and the lightness of your head. You are not used to being _caught_ at anything, because you are not used to sneaking around. (This is _your_ fleet, after all; that worthless suitor has no rights to it). He doesn’t hold it against you; he acts like you’re _part_ of them, of their group of slaves, and you believe you should be offended but you’re oddly flattered. You push the feeling away and leave. Later as you lie in your bed you think of his name, whisper it to yourself, taste it. It’s clunky and common but you like it and this makes you uneasy, so you carefully avoid thinking of _why_ you like it.

You stop talking to him and focus on your work. For four days you don’t sleep, labouring under candlelight. Your head swims and your eyes hurt and the sunlight seems a lot brighter on the deck. It glints on the choppy waves like white-hot metal and for some reason you think of _him_. Immediately, you tell yourself there is no sense in attaching yourself to stock about to be sold, or slaughtered, the way he’s going. There have been reports of his insolence, his open cheer, which is offensive because it demeans the sobriety of your ancient profession.

Your men are growing insistent, their anger palpable, their skin almost jumping with it.

“Can we beat him?”

“No.”

“Ma’am – ”

“ _I said **no**_.”

Your temper is infamous. This is a good thing. It makes people afraid of you, and you can tolerate being hated as long as you are also feared.

It goes on as expected. He stays. You shatter like rickety bones. (Or maybe he has only nudged you to break yourself into the shape you always knew you should have been.)

“What are you playing at?” he asks, and he is smiling but his tone is edged with steel. He is the captain he said you were; he is the light, and the charisma, and the hope. These are words you have been taught not to use, because they are foolish and abstract and don’t turn slaves to diamonds. You want to sink your fingers in his untamed hair and kiss his mouth till it’s as red as the sky outside. You are not used to _wanting_ things, so the churning feeling in your gut must be shame.

You tell yourself it will be fine. It's worth trying to be an optimist perhaps, though you've never concerned yourself with such frivolous, superstitious things.

They cast him, rope-bound and beaten, at your feet. Those blue eyes are closed and for a moment your heart is in your mouth _do-dom do-dom_ the world has _stopped_ \- but then he groans. You turn away. You will end here, you and this wayward slave, and you can't care less about yourself because you're unloved but you want him to live and he won't. It's your fault and you deserve to die. You should have sold him to the first merchant with a jiggling belly who called. Sakamoto - yes, you must use his name now; it is only right - would be unhappy but he would live, would still see the rising sun and the evening stars.

Later, he hands you a wide-brimmed straw hat that is unbecoming of your former status. "You don't seem to like sunlight, ahahaha; are you sure you're not a vampire?"

You decide his eyelashes are charming. They're darker than his hair, and so long they're slightly crooked. You want to feel them tickling your breast. You wonder how much they'd sell for in the market, if selling eyelashes were commonplace.

You toss him, shrieking, off the deck into the calm waters below.

***

Human staff are inconvenient. They are the most irritating things to happen to ships. You try to be amused, but really you are horrified by the daily grooming they require to not die: brush teeth twice, shower, three to six meals a day, moderate exercise, endless prescriptions of drugs and supplements. And they get _lonesome_. You scoff. Bizarrely, they require a constant group of (unnecessary) people to do things with. You are unimpressed when you see a hundred-year-old granny with a hunched back and a walking stick. With all that care, they ought to live to half a millennium.

Sakamoto, in particular, makes things difficult, not because he is bad, but because he is too good. It's not really his fault. It's just his innocence, his naïveté. Someone asks him for a paper and he'll give them his notebook. Someone shivers once and he'll hand over his coat. It's true he has much to give (you have a Midas-touch, he has told you - one of those strange Earth terms) but that isn't the point. His pockets could be lined with emptiness and he'd still give his shoes to a beggar. The problem is, he never sees _giving away_ as _losing_.

Such terrible business sense. What would he do without you?

But, sometimes, on nights when he is drunk on lassitude, he will peel up his sleeve when he thinks you are not watching, and study a grotesque scar that coils up his wrist. You know, without being told, that it is a loss. You want to press your lips against that old jagged thing, tell him _you_ are his right hand, say you'll protect him. And he needs protection, or maybe you just like thinking he does, to fuel your fancies of shielding him from the world, from whatever took anything away from him.

At such times he grows withdrawn and moody and you don't know how to deal with it. You're not good at talking and you never read books because your father told you useful people never read anything not about business or science. It's a little late to start learning how to commiserate, so you hang back and let the clouds pass.

***

You realise you don't really know if you two are friends. You don't know if he's your captain first and your...whatever he is, second. He is always by your side, or maybe you're always by his.

Then the fire alarms go off and Sakamoto starts screaming and you sigh and go back to not thinking about it.

There are more important things that require your attention.

***

The doctor tells him he has a weak spine and he laughs and says something about his height. This amuses you. _Weak_ is not a term that you ever pinned on Sakamoto. He is tall as a young tree and makes an awful noise and takes great big clumping steps when he walks. On the crowded streets of Edo people inadvertently scramble out of his way because they think he might trample them.

You are unused to thinking of anything as fragile. Weak, perhaps, but not fragile. Sakamoto is the furthest thing from weak but he is the most fragile thing you have ever seen, because he is the purest thing you have ever seen. You refuse to let him shatter (you don’t expect him to, but then, you never expected to not be a slave trader). This motley, broken crew needs him, needs the hope in his voice and the trust in his eyes, and, loth as you are to admit it, so you do.

As he ha-ha-has his way through the ship you see the fondness in the people’s gazes, the warmth tucked in the creases around their grins, and your chest feels tight because you know you can never be what he is (the accusation _failure_ flickers in your mind and you bury it), and yet you love him precisely because of this, because he possesses something you will never have. You will yell at him and threaten him, but you will also guard him fiercely. He does not love you, not like that, but you have decided he is yours.

You’ll let him go when he wants to leave. Until then you will do as seems good to you.  

***

“Kintoki always pulled these surprise attacks using the boats I procured for the war,” he says, smiling absently as he scribbles on the papers in front of him. You will have to go through them later, you think, prickling with irritation – Sakamoto is spaced out enough as it is; when he talks about Gintoki he is _giddy_ , like some raw boy pushing puberty. It’s as if he’s still in the war with his old comrades, not here, in the Kaientai (whichhecreatedwith _you_ ), _ten_ _years_ after it’s over.

“I used to scold him,” he continues, writing with happy carelessness, “and he’d tell me we needed the boats for something, anyway – ”

“Are you over him?” you snap. You have only met Gintoki once and the sidelong glances Sakamoto gave him were not lost on you.

He stills, looking at you and frowning. “What?”

“Gintoki,” you say with exaggerated patience. “You need to get over him.”

Sakamoto stares at you. After a moment he closes his mouth and says with false lightness, "Now, then, it's not your business, is it, Mutsu?" 

The part of your brain screaming at you to _shut up, idiot,_ _shut the hell up_ is drowned out by the rage in your chest. "It is my business," you retort before you can stop yourself, "if the thought of him makes you stupid, like you're _inebriated_ or something. What will happen at the next business deal? If you're like this all the time you'll ruin the Kaientai."

Sakamoto's face is white. "Mutsu," he says, in a frosty, composed voice that couldn't have emerged from those lungs so suited to laughter (it is enough to frighten you, just a bit), "please leave my office."

He doesn't speak to you for two days. It's obvious to the crew that he's seething. He doesn't yell at anyone but he's quiet and frowny and only gives monosyllabic responses. You learn to avoid the topic.

***

You don’t understand why Gintoki (the bastardised name _Kintoki_ immediately clatters around in your head and you wince) offers you a drink. At first you think he’s trying to flirt and get ready to slug him, but he seems quite harmless and you want something to knock your brains out, so you say yes. He doesn’t talk about Sakamoto till you do, and you already hate him. You hate him for commanding so _much_ of Sakamoto’s affection without even trying, without even being _present_ ; he doesn’t deserve an _ounce_ of Sakamoto’s thoughts.

He tells you about how they imagined, for a miniscule, mad moment, that Sakamoto was actually some stoic unshakeable leader, and all he did was puke on them. It’s disgusting and you should feel nothing but repulsion but you also feel endearment, because it’s so _like_ him, so you quaff your sake and dryly mourn your good sense. You realise you caught Sakamoto’s stupidity (his affection, his loyalty, his goddamn _heart_ ) along with his accent.

You kick Gintoki into the freezing water and tell him to fight with you, not because you need his help, but because he deserves it, for putting pain and yearning in Sakamoto’s eyes, for saying no when he should have said yes. If he’d agreed, Sakamoto would be with the person he loves and not with you, and maybe he wouldn’t feel the need to wear those ugly (boy, are they _ugly_ ) shades.

It’s just a reimbursement.

***

You've only done it a handful of times, and toyed with the idea that sex isn't all it's cracked up to be, because every time you expected it to be good and instead it was just sweaty and uncomfortable and you found yourself thinking of more interesting things, like cat cafés and medieval Chinese torture. The first time it was like ripping stitches, but you've experienced worse so you didn't cry. You did punch the guy's nose on reflex, though. In hindsight he deserved it.

Sakamoto is nothing like the boys-men you've rolled around with in the past. You're both drunk but it actually feels nice so you don't tell him to stop. He moves his blunt fingers between your legs gently, and you wonder if any prostitute ended up growing fond of him. Probably, a few did. You decide that sex isn't bad, but only if you're considerate and unselfish. Sakamoto's considerate and unselfish so he's good at it.

It's late and you've had a long day, and you laze in the blend of heady pleasure and tiredness. His sheets are silky and pale green, really, _really_ nice, and you feel a pang of guilt at the idea of ruining them. He's been stroking at you for a while and when he slowly slips half a finger inside it doesn't hurt, it doesn't feel like anything. You tell him to go back to what he was doing.

"Hey," he says, his voice sleep-heavy, "why're you doing this with _me_? You know you could have any man you wanted, right?" There is no self-pity in his tone, just guileless curiosity. You feel sorry for him, a little.

"Mutsu?"

You pull him up by the hair and kiss him, clumsy and earnest.

The next day neither of you talk about it. You have a mother of a headache. He laughs obnoxiously in the hallway and then throws up and you point your pistol at him and everything goes on as normal.

It doesn't happen again.

***

You're in your thirties and this is ridiculous.

"This is ridiculous," you say.

Sakamoto hands over a box to an attendant. "Ahaha, why?"

"A surprise birthday party. For a former shogun. Who's pushing forty."

"He's our friend, Mutsu! Don't be stingy! Ahahaha! Haha."

Shutting off the part of your brain that controls logic, you keep mum and roll up your sleeves. This will be a lot less painful if you mentally distance yourself from the upcoming fiasco.

***

"I want to adopt."

You take a sip of your beer and wipe the froth from your upper lip with the back of your hand. "A puppy? Come on, Sakamoto, someone will have to take care of it, and I know you won't. And our ships have hygiene standards, in case you forgot."

"Ahahaha! You're so funny, Mutsu! No, I meant a child."

You choke and thump yourself in the chest.

He ignores you, gazing at the night sky, and says, "Maybe I shoulda gone back to Tosa and married some nice girl my mom found for me. Ahaha, poor girl! Putting up with a husband like me! Ne, Mutsu, she'd deserve someone more handsome, and smarter, and...aa, that life isn't really for me, anyway. This...I can do, I think."

He's serious. Oh God, he's serious. You begin to think of all the ways this could go wrong. Sakamoto having a breakdown when the baby starts crying. Sakamoto tying a bib on its bottom and a nappy over its head. Sakamoto tripping with the baby and falling headlong over the railings of the ship. _Sakamoto_.

"Hey, Mutsu," he says, and you open your mouth to snap at him but stop when you look at his expression. "You'll help me, right? I won't be able to do this on my own. You're not its mom, I get it, I won't ask you to do a lot, but maybe you can stop me from being a total failure - "

"Shut up," you say, and down the rest of your beer. You realise you are going to need a lot of alcohol. And maybe a masseur. "I'll help you. Out of concern for the kid's life." And for his own, but you're not going to tell him that.

The smile on his face is as bright as the moon.

_-finis-_


End file.
